economy will be hit with $85 billion in across-the-board cuts. how can americans not be thinking okay, what does this mean to me? the stakes are high. they're really high. president obama is going to focus on the economy in his state of the union address tomorrow night. he needs to. the fragile economic recovery pretty much hangs in the balance when you throw numbers like this around. congress imposed this budget sequester on the country, and now they have just been unable to deal with it. here is a taste of what will happen. here is where the conversation gets a little dicey. it means between 600,000 and maybe a little bit more than a million jobs could be lost, depending on how businesses react to this. we've had 35 months of private sector job growth. that's a good number, with no republican help. and i think that job growth is going to be in jeopardy, not to mention the impact these cuts are going to have on discretionary spending. sheer an example. here is a tornado ripping through mississippi this weekend. they might need some federal help.